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Yankees Introduce First Baseman Mark Teixeira

Mark Teixeira was introduced to the media as the new Yankees first baseman on Tuesday. Credit
Barton Silverman/The New York Times

As the Yankees plowed money into pitching early this winter, General Manager Brian Cashman could not shake the Mark Teixeira highlights embedded in his brain.

There was the four-hit night for the Texas Rangers at Yankee Stadium in 2006, when Teixeira crunched Jorge Posada in a collision at the plate. There was the grand slam for the Los Angeles Angels in the Bronx last August, a hit that Cashman predicted as soon as Teixeira got ahead in the count. And there were the many diving grabs at first base, where doubles died in Teixeira’s Gold Glove.

The Yankees formally introduced Teixeira on Tuesday with a news conference at the old Yankee Stadium. Teixeira had been there as a fan when he was 8 or 9 years old, and he idolized Don Mattingly while growing up in Severna Park, Md. After signing for $180 million to play Mattingly’s old position for the next eight years, Teixeira knows he is a big part of the Yankees’ changing face.

“I look at myself as a leader,” Teixeira said. “First and foremost, I try to do things the right way on the field, and I think you can carry that over to the locker room and earn the respect of your teammates. I’ve always thought that a team has a few leaders that they look up to, and I’ve always wanted to be that guy.”

Those qualities came across to Cashman at his own introduction to Teixeira on Dec. 4 at a hotel in Washington. Cashman had taken a train there to meet Teixeira and his agent, Scott Boras, and he spent the day compiling a scouting report to supplement the raw highlights.

They talked about family, routines, influential coaches and Teixeira’s assessment of the Yankees. The hours seemed to fly by, said Cashman, who marveled at the lessons Teixeira had absorbed from former teammates like Chipper Jones.

“I was fascinated by that,” Cashman said. “He does not seem to be the type that is just talented. He knows what works for him and what may not.”

For years, Boras has succeeded by essentially getting a top club official to fall in love with his client, applying a personal touch to well-known statistics. This case was no different.

The Angels, the Boston Red Sox and Teixeira’s hometown teams, the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals, were also interested. But after the meeting, Cashman had a fuller picture of Teixeira as serious-minded without personal baggage, humble yet sure of himself and hungry for a championship.

Sometime after the meeting — Cashman was not sure when — the Yankees made a six- or seven-year offer for $20 million per season that Boras did not accept. The Yankees pulled the offer, and Cashman was unable to convince his boss, Hal Steinbrenner, that Teixeira was worth a longer contract than C. C. Sabathia, who signed for seven years and $161 million.

But Cashman was trying, and he let Boras know that. With the Red Sox unwilling to guarantee $180 million for eight years — or $176 million for eight, and two options that could have brought the total to $220 million over 10 years — the Yankees had a chance.

Teixeira said he decided on Dec. 12, in a dinner conversation with his wife, to make the Yankees his first choice if all offers were equal. Yet as late as 11 a.m. on Dec. 23, the Yankees had not made another offer. Boras wanted an answer by 1 p.m. that day, and Cashman said he expected the Red Sox to make the winning bid.

Fearful of that possibility, Steinbrenner finally authorized the magic numbers Teixeira and Boras wanted: eight years for $22.5 million per season.

“A big part of Mark Teixeira — and I told Scott Boras this — is we’re not just investing in the present, we’re investing in the future, in the long term,” Steinbrenner said. “It came down to the point we knew Mark needed to make a decision, and it all happened in a hurry.”

Like that, Teixeira acknowledged, the Red Sox were out. They had seemed to be leading the pursuit — even when they failed to make a deal after a Dec. 18 meeting with Teixeira in Dallas — but the Yankees’ late move made the difference.

“When their offer wasn’t with the Yankees’,” Teixeira said, referring to the Red Sox, “and it just didn’t look like they were going to continue to better their offer, and the Yankees came in and did what they did, it was an easy decision.”

The Yankees expect to have a lower payroll next season than last year’s $209 million, but their winter splurge has bothered other teams. Executives of the Milwaukee Brewers, the Houston Astros and the Pittsburgh Pirates have publicly endorsed a salary cap, but Steinbrenner dismissed such talk.

“This organization does a lot for this industry as a whole, between the merchandise we sell and the tickets we sell and the millions of dollars in revenue sharing we contribute,” he said. “If some of the owners are upset that we’re trying to invest in the team — which we do for the fans, and only for the fans — I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”

In Teixeira, the Yankees add a player with five consecutive seasons of at least 30 home runs and 100 runs batted in, an active streak matched by only Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols. Teixeira has hit .300 with a .400 on-base percentage in each of the last two seasons and has two Gold Gloves.

With the additions of Teixeira, Sabathia and A. J. Burnett, the Yankees seem poised to recover quickly from their third-place finish in the American League East last season. Cashman acknowledged that the emergence of the Tampa Bay Rays had spurred him to bolster the roster — and, of course, there are always the Red Sox.

For all his optimism Tuesday, Cashman could easily remember a parallel: February 2004, when the Yankees snagged Rodriguez after the Red Sox lost their chance. The Yankees expected to wrest the advantage in their rivalry with that move, but the reverse happened.

“You can’t get caught up in that,” Cashman said. “People thought that way about Alex, and they’ve won two championships since. Winning the winter means squat.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on page B11 of the New York edition with the headline: Hardball Economics: The Yankees introduced the latest piece to their winter spending spree: Mark Teixeira, their $180 million man. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe